Since the first use of natural gas in Fredonia, N.Y. in 1820 it has been known that natural gas can be used as an energy source. During the oil boom, oil drillers would quite often strike a well of natural gas or an oil reserve that held natural gas in solution when they were drilling for oil. Energy developers, however, rushing to develop petroleum reserves, considered striking one of these natural gas reserves as an embarrassment and a hindrance. This natural gas would be "burned off" or the well would be capped. The oil drillers considered the natural gas useless, and if the drilling project bared natural gas rather than oil, the well was considered a failure. Oilmen actually had low esteem for people involved with natural gas development. For many years, few if any markets for natural gas developed. Consequently, in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas and a few other natural gas-producing states, trillions of cubic feet of natural gas produced during oil production were simply burned or "flared off" into the atmosphere. For years the burning flares of natural gas were a familiar glow in the skies over oil fields.
In the 1930's, however, some keen energy developers started realizing the immense potential of natural gas as an energy resource if could be refined, handled, and piped to markets. World War II, however, slowed development of natural gas reserves as a energy resource. After World War II with the introduction of new thin walled pipeline technology and cold bending and welding that allowed increased pipe diameters up to 36 inches, a natural gas/energy revolution was born. Energy managers began and continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to extend extensive natural gas pipeline networks. For example, pipelines now link the United States' Gulf Coast natural gas deposits to large natural gas markets, notably the Midwest and the Northeastern United States, where it is combusted extensively for home and building heating.
Natural gas consists mainly of methane, but reserves vary significantly in composition. Natural gas is commonly extracted from underground sources as a gas cap over oil reserves, gas stored in an oil solution, or as gas well reserves. Numerous bore holes into the natural gas reserves are capped and controlled with well heads, which in turn are connected to small or medium size gathering lines. A number of these smaller gathering lines originating from a number of well heads frequently interconnect to a field gas processing facility, which removes undesirable non-hydrocarbon fractions from the natural gas. This non-hydrocarbon fraction typically consists of varying amounts of water vapor, helium, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon dioxide, among others, with water vapor, hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide being most prevalent. At the field gas processing facility water vapor is removed by passing the natural gas through a desiccant that dehydrates the moisture, and CO.sub.2 can be removed selectively or in conjunction with hydrogen sulfide typically by passing the gas through an amine solution. Gas well heads are usually controlled to deliver raw gas at stable rates so contaminants can be consistently and efficiently removed at the field gas processing facility.
After field gas processing, a group of more significant gathering pipelines typically converge, interconnect and merge numerous gas wells, gas fields and smaller field gas processing facilities, as described above, to larger centralized gas processing facilities. These large natural gas processing facilities further scrub the gas of non-hydrocarbon impurities, but substantially extract a desirable hydrocarbon and hydrogen fraction from the natural gas as condensates or distillates. These desirable extracted gases include: propane, butane, pentane, and hydrogen. These naturally occur in the natural gas are generally cooled under controlled pressure conditions at the centralized gas processing facilities, which allows for this fraction's condensation and removal. This protects the pipeline against hydrates, which often freeze and clog the gathering and transmission pipelines. The liquid hydrocarbon and hydrogen distillates are valuable and utilized.
The refined natural gas that exits a centralized gas processing facility for transmission purposes typically comprises about 95% methane (CH.sub.4), less than about 1% CO.sub.2 (generally about 0.8% CO.sub.2 remaining after gas processing), about 1% nitrogen (N.sub.2) gas (remaining after gas processing), about 2.7% ethane, about 0.15% propane, about 0.35% hydrogen (H.sub.2) gas, and about 0.03% helium and other trace gases. Methane is colorless and odorless, so the gas is typically stenched with a sulfur compound like mercaptan for transmission, to purposefully give the gas an odor that allows gas leaks to be safely and easily detected by the human nose. This odorized methane (with generally less than 1% CO.sub.2) is then introduced into large transmission pipelines for shipment to distant markets. End use is often several thousand miles away from the originating gas well heads, field processing facilities and gas processing centers, so a series of compressors are employed along the lengthy transmission route to boost pressures, thus moving the methane gas through the pipeline.
Today, natural gas is considered the world's cleanest energy source because its principal refined chemical constituent for transmission, methane, when combusted produces few particulates, little adverse sulfur emissions, and no ash by-product. Notable amounts of water vapor and carbon dioxide gas are produced, however, from the combustion of methane. These water vapor and CO.sub.2 gas by-products are considered harmless by-products and are generally vented into the atmosphere through an exhaust stack. Natural gas' clean burning characteristics and ability to form chemical bonds make it an invaluable ingredient in the manufacturing of plastic polymers, fertilizers, and a host of other critical industrial and household chemicals. The majority of the world's chemical industry is centered around large reserves of natural gas. In the U.S., for example, industrial centers are positioned near the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Houston, Tex., a large natural gas processing area. Many of these industrial processes/facilities also produce carbon dioxide, which is again considered a waste to be vented.
As mentioned earlier, many of the major natural gas pipelines in the U.S. extend from the gas producing region along the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Region to the Northeast and Midwest regions, where vast amounts of natural gas are burned to heat buildings during the winter. From November to March these pipelines carry natural gas to metropolitan heating markets from many distant, often rural and remote gas fields. Extensive pipeline networks for transmission and distribution of natural gas for heating purposes are designed, engineered and constructed to deliver peak winter demands. During extreme winter cold periods in the northern United States vast amounts of natural gas are combusted to heat homes and buildings, taxing the gas transmission network's ability to keep up with demand. In the warmer spring, summer, and autumn months the demand for natural gas plummets, though, leaving as much as 75% of the pipelines' transmission capacity inactive from April through October. The methane requirements of base industrial processes keep only a portion of the capacity active transmitting natural gas. Significant amounts of natural gas are also produced from off-shore platforms located in large bodies of water like the Gulf of Mexico which are linked to on-shore markets by transmission pipelines. Extensive off-shore natural gas production also takes place in the North Sea and other regions. In the Southern Hemisphere the cold months of natural gas demand are the opposite of the Northern Hemisphere, reflecting fall and winter from April to October south of the equator.
The resulting peaks and valleys in demand in pipelines servicing the northern climates, i.e., the differences between the winter months of high demand and the summer months of low demand, are problematic and costly to the natural gas industry and consumers. This seasonal variation in natural gas demand results in significantly higher natural gas prices to pay for the expensive fixed capital costs of exaggerated pipeline capacity to meet peak winter demand. Further, pipelines need to operate near capacity to be efficient. Typically, a gas transmission route might incorporate five or six pipelines running in parallel. As demand falls the pipelines are idled one at a time in parallel, leaving the remaining operating pipelines and compressors to transmit natural gas at an efficient level, near capacity.
To try to mitigate the affects of the high fixed costs of natural gas transmission systems and the low demand for the product during the summer, natural gas companies have employed three basic strategies to improve economic return on their fixed costs. First, natural gas is pumped year round from the U.S. Gulf Coast northward and is injected into suitable geological formations, typically porous sandstone or salt caverns, that are situated close to winter demand markets and that have the capability of safely storing natural gas underground until winter heating demand calls for it. There is a limited number of these suitable geologic formations, however, and most known strategic rock formations for gas injection/offpeak gas storage are now fully utilized, i.e., the suitable geological formations near the end use natural gas markets are being exploited for summer natural gas storage already.
The second method employed by natural gas companies to improve summer pipeline load factors is known as interruptible service. This involves getting a large industrial customer to switch to natural gas as an energy source, rather than burn a less expensive fuel alternative like coal. With interruptible service, however, comes the contingency that periodically during the peak winter heating season, the gas supply can and generally is shut off/interrupted, forcing this industrial natural gas customer to switch back to an alternative energy source for a seasonal period of time. For the inconvenient interruption of natural gas deliveries, the natural gas company then gives this customer a substantially reduced price for the natural gas, often a third to half the normal natural gas price. This makes the interruptible natural gas service an economically attractive energy option. Like underground gas injection, however, there is only a limited number of industrial customers that can economically be converted to interruptible service.
The third strategy employed by natural gas transmission companies to level peaks and valleys in seasonal demand for gas is an extensive system of liquefied natural gas, LNG, storage facilities within the winter methane gas markets. With LNG storage the methane is pumped from the Gulf Coast north throughout the summer. When the methane gas arrives at the storage facility it is compressed and super-cooled into a greatly concentrated liquid form. The LNG is stored in manmade pressurized, super-cooled tanks, which maintain the methane in a liquid state until peak winter natural gas demands. LNG, storage, however, tends to be a costly option including high capital costs and high operating costs.
All three of these strategies--underground injection, interruptible service, and LNG storage--have proved successful to one degree or another to help recover the high fixed costs associated with natural gas transmission pipelines and raise summer demand for the methane gas. Nevertheless, the opportunities for these strategies is limited and a large percentage of the north-bound gas transmission infrastructure, to meet peak winter demand, remains underutilized during the summer months. Right now natural gas pipelines that are idle during the non-heating season cost the industry billions of dollars in interest on investment and represent a huge under-utilization of an asset.
In industrialized countries that lack significant energy reserves and cannot economically access reserves of natural gas via pipeline (e.g., Japan), an extensive fleet of LNG ships is employed to meet energy demands. These LNG ships return from the natural gas markets to the natural gas producing regions empty, often on a weekly basis. These ships are also underutilized during the warmer months when the demand for natural gas plummets.
Gas pipelines in the mild/temperate climates, are used more consistently throughout the year than those extending to the wintry climates, because the methane gas is used mainly for industrial processes rather than seasonal heating needs. Because natural gas is abundant in the Gulf Coast region, there is no need for high-cost interstate transmission pipelines to deliver gas in the immediate reserve region. Consequently, in regions with underlying abundant reserves of natural gas, methane is used extensively year round as an economically attractive energy option for generating electricity and as an energy source for energy intensive industrial complexes.
All this combustion of methane produces CO.sub.2 which is vented into the atmosphere. Besides the extensive combustion of natural gas in the Gulf Coast region, the use of natural gas in the chemical industry and other industrial processes also produce large amounts of CO.sub.2. For example, large amounts of cement, fertilizer, and lime, are produced in Texas which produces vast amounts of CO.sub.2 as a by-product. Additionally, CO.sub.2 is commonly used to provide the "fizz" in carbonated beverages and is used as a propellant to deliver tap beverages. CO.sub.2 is also used in several industrial applications particularly for refrigeration, packaging, and transport of meat, poultry and fish.
In a manner similar to the early oil boom when natural gas was overlooked as a valuable energy resource and was treated as a waste of oil production, today CO.sub.2 is generally treated as a waste by-product of industrial processes and energy production via combustion. Like natural gas in the early days of the oil boom, CO.sub.2 is also vented into the atmosphere through large emission vent stacks. Trillions of cubic feet of CO.sub.2 gas from combustion and industrial sources have and continue to be dumped into the Earth's atmosphere, creating a huge political debate to limit CO.sub.2 emissions. Scientists predict the "greenhouse" effects of CO.sub.2 gas will cause an atmospheric warming tread leading to the melting of the polar ice caps--global warming.
CO.sub.2 is often liquefied, i.e., super cooled and pressurized into a liquid. It is then transported as a liquid in insulated and pressurized tanker trucks or tanker railcars. It can also be stored as dry ice in a solid form. It is also known in the art that CO.sub.2 can be sequestered at depths of 500 to 1000 meters underwater, where pressures are so great that the CO.sub.2 is held in a solid form known as a clathrate. U.S. Pat. No. 5,397,553, (the teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference) outlines an efficient method for conversion of CO.sub.2 gas to clathrates. Also, dedicated pipeline schemes are being "Blue Skied" to sequester CO.sub.2 from power plants in Europe as solid CO.sub.2 clathrates at ocean depths as great as 4000 meters. (See, e.g., New Scientists, Jul. 17, 1993) Clathrates to date have not been viewed as a resource with value.
In a few dedicated industrial applications requiring substantial volumes of CO.sub.2 gas for economic processes, some relatively short CO.sub.2 gas transmission pipelines are currently in operation. CO.sub.2 is also commonly re-injected into underground oil reserves to keep the pressure up in the reserve, thus enhancing the crude's recovery by pushing it to the surface. The oil industry also uses CO.sub.2 to increase the flowability of oil in pipelines to reduce the energy required to pump crude, especially during the cold winter months. Use of CO.sub.2 to enhance oil flow through pipelines is highlighted by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,389,714 and 3,596,437. Santhanam's U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,206,610 and 4,721,420 (the teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference) use a dense liquid CO.sub.2 medium to transport particles of coal or magnetite via pipelines. Other gases, like ammonium gas used to manufacture agricultural fertilizers, are also transported in short range transmission pipelines for delivery to markets. Final delivery of the ammonia to the farmers, however, is in a processed solid or liquid form, not a gaseous state.
For many years it has been known that carbon dioxide gas can be used to enhance plant growth. At normal atmospheric conditions CO.sub.2 represents about 0.03% of the ambient air, but with a doubling of ambient CO.sub.2 concentration to about 0.06%, plant yields are markedly increased by as much as 50%. Plants experiencing elevated CO.sub.2 concentrations make more efficient use of available water, too. If the CO.sub.2 level is increased too high (e.g., greater than 0.1%), however, the CO.sub.2 will become detrimental to plant growth and may also be harmful to humans and other organisms. Most efforts to increase plant yields using CO.sub.2 gas have focused on increasing plant growth in greenhouses, although some out-of-door efforts have been made by the J. R. Simplot Company, University of Michigan, Duke University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture with varying degrees of success.
While CO.sub.2 gas is commonly introduced into greenhouses to increase plants' growth rates, large agricultural markets for CO.sub.2 gas that can keep pace with planetary CO.sub.2 emissions have not been developed. With regard to plant growth enhancement it is most economical and advantageous to distribute the CO.sub.2 gas over a large area via a pipeline network or matrix. CO.sub.2 "irrigation" will enhance crop yields. Other systems haven't taken into account the practicality of farmers' normal tasks, however, and don't allow for farmers' normal procedures in the fields and use standard farm implements. While the present applicant's CO.sub.2 Recycling System (disclosed in PCT International Publication No. WO 95/32611, the teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference) attempts to accommodate common farming practices, that system requires the extensive movement of pipes and doesn't provide a cost effective method for the transmission and delivery of CO.sub.2. Thus, venting of CO.sub.2 into Earth's atmosphere proceeds as a byproduct of an energy-intensive and fossil fuel-dependent society. It would be desirable to develop a market to utilize large amounts of CO.sub.2 gas.
Intensive fertilizer applications, deployment of extensive irrigation infrastructure, and the wide spread plantings of hybrid crops have been largely optimized in many areas of the world. Annual harvests and yields per acre have peaked and are declining in the U.S. With limited food surpluses and as world population and food demand sky rocket, the U.S.'s ability to keep pace with this growing global demand has failed to keep pace with billions of new mouths to feed. Some of the most prestigious authorities on the subject of world food supplies and demand predict that the next 30 years will bring rapidly deteriorating world food supplies and massive food shortages.
During any growing season, farmers across a region may experience a number of climatic events which may preclude the farmers from achieving maximum crop yield potential, resulting in poor, uneconomic harvests. Monsoons and/or wet fields in the spring can mire the entry of tractors into muddy fields, forcing the farmers to plant late, thus shortening the growing season and reducing yields. Late thaws can also preclude farmers from tilling a field at the proper time of year to reach maximum yield potential. Low sunlight intensity or temperature conditions can reduce soil temperatures resulting in poor germination conditions for seed. Flooding, drought, hail and storm damage, or high temperatures can also take a toll, especially when the crops are in their susceptible juvenile stage. Many marginal lands cannot be brought into economic productivity except with irrigation. Some regions may be able to deliver two harvests per year, but can't quite yield two mature harvests except in years of ideal weather conditions. In non-temperate regions the most prominent climatic problem farmers face is early freezing, i.e., "killing frost."
Thus, farmers are constantly looking for ways to increase crop yields per acre. Drought conditions can be alleviated through irrigation. Water delivery systems for irrigation cover millions of acres worldwide. Irrigation techniques come in various forms from ancient techniques to mobile, high-tech infrastructure. The water can be sprayed, dripped through pipes or simply allowed to flow out of canals over a field. Further, water is absorbed, attracted and held by voids in the soil so irrigation systems and water delivery can move around in a single field or be cycled from one field to the next and back again. This is very advantageous because the irrigation systems can either be totally removed from a field or be easily mobile over a large acreage. This permits the farmers to enter the field with a tractor to till, plow, sow seed, apply fertilizers, apply pesticides, etc., and to harvest the crop without bumping into irrigation infrastructure. Also, irrigation may only have to be performed for a short period of time, often a short number of critically dry days during the growing season, to prevent drought losses in crop yields.
In more arid regions, such as in the western United States, water is a valuable resource for agricultural and domestic uses. Crops demand and use the vast majority, up to 90%, of the available water in some areas. Irrigation has depleted the Colorado River causing it to dwindle into the desert and no longer even reach the Pacific Ocean. The Oglalla aquifer under the Central Plains of the United States has dropped 150 feet from irrigation pumping. Further, exploding metropolitan populations like Las Vegas are thirsty for more water. CO.sub.2 enrichment can help farmers bolster crop yields and will result in plants utilizing available water far more efficiently in photosynthesis. Crops could be supplemented with CO.sub.2 gas, thereby freeing agricultural water appropriations to be appropriated to other areas and/or uses. Also, introducing CO.sub.2 to fields of crops would leave more water for in-stream flow and thus would enhance important fish and wildlife resources.
When farmers apply ammonium anhydrous fertilizer/ammonium to a field of crops, the plants' root systems only assimilate about fifty percent of the available nutrients. This represents a tremendous waste of an expensive fertilizer application, but is a common agricultural practice. If crops' leaves are surrounded with inflated levels of CO.sub.2 gas, fertilizer nutrient uptake by plant roots would increase and farmers would realize increased yields with the same applications of fertilizers. Further, less fertilizers would then reach ground water and surface waters. Fertilizer runoff is a leading cause of "non-point" water pollution caused by the agricultural industry, contaminating surface streams, lakes, and ground water reserves that provide drinking water, fish and wildlife habitat and valuable human recreation resources.
Unlike water which is visible and tangible, CO.sub.2 gas is colorless, odorless and is needed in minuscule concentrations by plants. Thus, CO.sub.2 delivery to crops is more problematic to monitor, control and optimize than delivering irrigation water. Compounding this is the fact that elevated levels of CO.sub.2 gas rapidly disperse and diffuse into the atmosphere, particularly under windy conditions. CO.sub.2 gas can not be effectively projected by sprinklers or gravity-flooded over a large acreage in a ubiquitous manner like irrigation water. Irrigation and rain water available to crops is stored in the soil profile for many days, allowing farmers to cycle irrigation rigs and water delivery patterns from one field to the next. CO.sub.2 gas, in contrast, is not held by gravity or the soil voids. Irrigation can take place anytime during the day including at night. Conversely, enhanced CO.sub.2 gas should be delivered only during the growing season and only during the daylight hours when plants are undergoing photosynthesis. As a result, CO.sub.2 gas presents especially troublesome complexities, making gas concentrations highly variable from one minute to the next. It would be quite difficult to accurately control delivery of tiny amounts of invisible, odorless CO.sub.2 gas to field crops manually.
Gas irrigation with CO.sub.2 is one method farmers can use to increase crop yields and conserve water. Large PVC pipes have been tried for CO.sub.2 delivery, as have trench systems such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,409,508, aqua-culture delivery system and dual use irrigation systems (all as suggested in PCT International Publication No. WO 95/32611, incorporated above by reference). Even so, to date an economical and efficient agricultural CO.sub.2 gas delivery system for field crops or aqua culture has not been developed and widely deployed. Presently, CO.sub.2 cannot be effectively chemically bonded into a solid form for slow release consistently throughout the daylight hours of a growing season. CO.sub.2 gas must be rather evenly distributed over the entire area of the field so the gas will be incident to crops' leaves, meaning a CO.sub.2 gas delivery system needs to be located in close proximity the plants. Also, the CO.sub.2 gas should be delivered in a fairly continuous manner during the daylight hours when the plants are undergoing photosynthesis. Crop yields could be systematically increased if an integrated CO.sub.2 gas delivery system spread the proper concentration of CO.sub.2 contiguously and cost-effectively over large acreage of agricultural or forestry lands, or throughout an aqua culture operation.
This leaves the alternative of distributing CO.sub.2 gas through a rather permanent conduit distribution matrix. A problem arises, however, when a farmer needs to enter the field with a tractor to plow, till, sow seed, apply fertilizer, apply pesticides etc. and to harvest at the end of the growing season. If CO.sub.2 gas distribution pipelines are laying in the fields this will hinder access, getting in the way of tractor, plow and farmer. U.S. Pat. No. 5,409,508, entitled "Means and Methods for Enhancing Plant Growth Under Field Conditions," and U.S. Pat. No. 5,300,226, entitled "Waste Handling Method", (the teachings of both of which are incorporated herein by reference) are both authored by one of the present inventors. The systems disclosed in these patents don't require pipes, but do employ an extensive trench system which limits the use of normal agricultural equipment and techniques. Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method for delivering gas efficiently to a large acreage of field crops which allows the farmer to easily access the crop fields to perform his normal agricultural tasks.
Furthermore, plants' rates of photosynthesis are extremely sensitive to the surrounding temperature and plants can be permanently damaged by freezing temperatures. Notably, photosynthetic rates and crop yields are directly tied to an optimal temperature, which around 80 degrees during daylight hours for many crops. Also, premature frost, commonly occurring at night at the beginning or end of the growing season, can be devastating. Often, a killing frost might come early in September, when the growing season normally (commonly known as "Indian Summer") extends well into November in the Northern Hemisphere. An early killing frost can send crop yields plummeting and the price of grain futures and/or the prices of fruits and vegetables at consumer levels skyrocketing in value. Also, early freezing often means that much of the grain harvesting must proceed before optimal seasonal timing, resulting in the grain needing to be thermally dried. Thermal drying is an expensive, energy intensive process for farmers. If the crops are not dried properly via thermal drying, the grains can spoil before they reach market and probably will have too high of a moisture content for proper storage in silos. If farmers can avert these early killing frosts, yields can be dramatically increased through extended growing seasons and the farmers will require much less expensive, less energy intensive thermal drying as the crops can naturally cure in the fields.
Monitoring devices exist to measure CO.sub.2 levels. Various photo cells and timers exist to turn off night and day switches. Transpiration monitors exist to measure water losses of plants. Further manual controls, that provide on and off for day and night, and seasonal start stop capability are commercially available like the Toro Vision I Series Controller. But it would be desirable to have all of these parameters linked to a gas transmission and delivery system in an integrated fashion, including controls such as a Honeywell Chronotherm III thermostat and anyone of a number of commercially available monitoring devices such the Fyrite II combustion analyzer manufactured by Bacharach, Incorporated located in Pittsburgh, Pa., which can monitor CO.sub.2 levels.
It is important to note that many of the natural gas pipelines in the United States originate along the Gulf Coast and mid-southern states which have seasonally warm climates. Most of the southern areas' indigenous vegetation includes what is commonly known among the science as C.sub.4 plants. C.sub.4 plants do not go dormant through a chemical adaptation to year-round temperatures above freezing. In the higher latitudes that experience common freezing and winter conditions, indigenous vegetative species are C.sub.3 plants, which go dormant during the winter when temperatures are below freezing. C.sub.3 plants tend to be stimulated to more rapid growth rates by increased introduction of carbon dioxide gas than do C.sub.4 plants, while C.sub.4 plants may be stimulated at lower levels, but on a year round basis. Therefore, it will be most beneficial to deliver CO.sub.2 gas to the growing regions and crop species that will respond the most economically to gas fertilization. Wheat, cotton, soy beans, many vegetables and many tree species will respond markedly to CO.sub.2 gas enhancement. Corn, the largest U.S. grain crop, however, does not exhibit significant growth increases when exposed to elevated levels of CO.sub.2 gas.
The world's growing population and appetite for higher living standards is creating unprecedented demand for food, water, and energy. Much of this growing demand is in the highly populated emerging industrial economies of countries like India and China, where land, food, water, and energy resources have already reached constrictive limits. For instance, vast new generating capacity will be needed to meet these emerging industrial economies' increasing demand for electricity. Many energy experts predict most of this increasing demand for electrical generating capacity will be produced by the burning of coal. Coal creates much more air pollution than does the burning of natural gas, including acid rain and CO.sub.2 greenhouses gases, exasperating the environmental problems that are already plaguing these developing countries. A technological breakthrough involving energy efficiency and agricultural production could help these populous countries tremendously.
Currently, carbon dioxide gas is considered a waste product of almost all combustion and industrial processes. Natural gas pipelines are not fully utilized during summer months. Farmers are looking for ways to increase crop yields to meet escalating comestibles demand. Hence, a tremendous opportunity exists and it would be desirable to link the CO.sub.2 emission sources with agricultural CO.sub.2 gas markets using natural gas pipelines that are idled for the spring, summer and fall.